Min Xiu Updates

We received updated photos and measurements of our XiuXiu! She is currently 19 kilos (almost 42 pounds) and 111 cm tall, so she is a size 5/6.

We have heard that our travel approval should be arriving in St. Louis (where our agency's office is located) today, but we will still need to wait for the consulate appointment to finalize our plans and purchase those tickets.

Our Incredible Bridge Building Team

The North Carolina Department of Transportation sponsors a bridge building competition and invites middle and high schools from around the state to participate. Teams are judged on their bridge (which had to be light and strong), an oral presentation and an essay.

Our team started meeting after school once a week in October. Students were challenged to build a bridge that was both light and strong, using balsa wood and glue. It had to have a clear span large enough for a 3" cube to pass under and space for a 2" cube to "drive" over the bridge. Everyone designed, then built, then weighed and finally stress-tested their bridges. The winning bridge was designed by Sarah Beach and Tanika Bantukul and they spent the next couple of months working to improve upon the design for entry in today's regional competition.

The rest of the bridge building team devoted themselves to the essay and the oral presentation. The group of students who were in charge of the presentation decided to do a skit based on Star Wars with characters Obi Wan Compression, Darth Deadload, Yoganeer and Luke Tension (Alex). Their skit was fantastic and did a great job of explaining the engineering behind bridges!



Our bridge was one of the lightest, but unfortunately was not strong enough to be the winning bridge. We were surprised and thrilled to learn that our essay and skit earned enough points for our end of day total to edge out the competition and win the middle school division! We now have one month to strengthen our design for the state competition in April. Great job team!

It's Official

Lauren Min Xiu McKenzie

We've been holding tight to some news. Some wonderful news that after our experience with GuoXin we felt we needed to wait until sharing. Wait until we had our official referral from China. Well today we got the call from our agency that the Seeking Confirmation Letter had arrived from China! They are going to overnight it to us and we should have the official referral tomorrow for our 8 year old daughter, Fu Min Xiu. She is currently living in Fuzhou (pronounced Fu-Joe) City, in Jiangxi Provence. We should be traveling mid-May to meet her and bring her home.

Happy Valentine's Day

Will you be my Valentine?
I know that I am yours.
You are like a tossing sea
And I am like your shores.

You are like an endless wave
And I your waiting sand.
And I will wait forever for you
To come and take my hand.

I will wait forever, yet
You are a part of me.
I hold you in my arms, while you
Come to me endlessly.

Will you be my Valentine?
I know that I am yours.
I love you with a love that waits
A love that time endures.

36,000 Doughnuts

It was no place for the faint of heart. Four miles. A dozen doughnuts. One hour. The fourth running of the Krispy Kreme Challenge took place this weekend and we were just the idiots, 4 of 3000+, to participate.

What started as a gag (no pun intended) among fraternity brothers at NC State has seen each year double the previous in number of runners and this year's earnings for the Children's Hospital of NC was $20,000.

You start at the NC State Belltower and run 2 miles to the Krispy Kreme store in Raleigh. You eat a dozen doughnuts. Then run back. And you have to complete the challenge in under an hour.

We (mostly Phil) had been planning and training for this thing for months, including a morning where we ate some doughnuts mid run. But in the past month and a half I had slacked off quite a bit and wasn't planning on actually running. Plus Alex hadn't been running regularly for a while so I figured he may not be able to run the full four and was prepared to meet the guys at the doughnut shop and shuttle Alex back to the start in the car. What I didn't know until Friday morning was that my brother, John, had signed up for the race and took the red eye from Seattle Thursday night to surprise me for my birthday. So at 5pm Friday evening I signed up to run.

It was cold Saturday morning. Well, cold for here. I think it was 31 when we left the car to head over to the Bell Tower. But the party atmosphere at the start area helped to keep us warm and helped to distract us from the calorie laden task ahead. Alex and I ran together with Phil slightly ahead and John a minute or two ahead of him. When we reached the Krispy Kreme the parking lot was already full of people in various stages of sugar high. We found John with his box of doughnuts, 10 still to go. He had managed to pull away from us during the initial run, but 10 minutes later all four of us were leaving the sugar encrusted parking lot together. I shudder to think what that says about our ability to pound the junk food. Oh, and for those of you thinking what horrible parents we are, Alex only ate 2 doughnuts. Not a dozen.




The run back wasn't too bad at first (at that point downhill) until we heard someone yell "Uggh!!" and looked back to see why. Fortunately no one in our group saw their doughnuts reappear although there were people using the numerous lined trash cans to ease their stomachs.

John was the only one of us to complete the challenge in under the hour (:59). Alex came in a few minutes after him and Phil and I brought up the rear in 1:07. Remarkably we all felt fine throughout the day and there were no ill effects the next, either. We'll see if today sees everything catch up with us!


The winner of the challenge finished in 31:20. And his prize . . . doughnuts!

And the Winner Is . . .

We did the drawing for the advent calendar yesterday and the winner is Soon 2 China! Just send me an email with how to get the calendar to you and I'll post it straight away! Thank you for taking the time to follow our ramblings!

Fall

I know it's nearly Christmas, but we are just now getting to our leaves. It's not that we're super lazy (although we do at times lack the necessary inertia to get things done) but the trees have been hanging on to their dried out vegetation like the bald guy refusing to admit that his comb-over is a bad idea. Just get it over with and dare to bare. Well our trees in the past two weeks have finally given up any hope that their leaves would come back to life and have released them to our care. Fortunately it is a beautiful warm December day (that is just so wrong) and we've raked and gathered, and raked and mulched, and the yard looks much tidier.

Holiday Street Lighting

Last night was a great example of how fun our neighborhood is. Some very creative and festive neighbors decided to have a holiday street lighting celebration to kick off the holidays. The idea was to have all of your exterior decorations up and ready to go by Sunday night. Just before 6:30 we were to meet at the Cul-de-Sac halfway along our street, but leave one family member at home waiting for the signal! Everyone was to bring bells and their best holiday cheering voices, and when the countdown was over Dads who were left home, heard the ringing and shouting and flipped the switches and illuminated the street. The Dad's soon joined the festivities which included hot cocoa, cider and cookies, and a surprise guest performer Stacy Clearman , who performs weekly at a local coffee shop and is extremely popular with the preschool set (and their parents).

It was a nice evening chatting with neighbors, listening to fun holiday music (with some creative and interpretive horn accompaniment) and kids playing in the fresh piles of raked leaves. We walked home, with cowbell in hand, enjoying the first lights of the holiday season.

Giving

I just revisited my earlier post and I think I need to shift my thinking. We are so blessed in our lives with family and friends, a secure and loving home, and our needs (and most wants) are able to be met. Our collective health, while not perfect, is very manageable and doesn't overtly affect our day to day. We have so much to be thankful for in our lives it feels very selfish whining about something that we have control over (emotional control, not so much).

Phil and I met while students at Virginia Tech and were both members of the national service fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega. Giving and helping others is something that is a mutual joy. Whenever I felt stressed or was having a difficult week with classes (or roommates, lol) going and working on a service project, just giving to others, was such a boost.

In that boost-needing light, I'm taking an idea from fellow blogger Lori and am having an Advent Calendar Giveaway. I know that my timing is a bit off for this year, but to be honest I've had this one (plus 3) since purchased while living in France. I stashed them away with my holiday decorations vowing to keep one for me (someday, someday I might have a daughter) and send the others to various friends with daughters. Well, each year I open the tub of Christmas decorations, see the calendars, and sigh "next year".




The calendar is really far more charming than the pictures portray, a lovely raspberry color (not fuscia) and the detail on the fairies is lovely. If you would like to be part of the giveaway please leave a comment letting me know. I'll have Alex pick the winner December 10th!

Sadness

What should have been so joyfully wonderful has opened such a can of worms . . . we received a video of our little guy last Monday afternoon. We knew it was coming; we had actually thought it would have arrived earlier. We couldn't wait to see him in action and hear his little voice. It turns out that the orphanage was not entirely up front with his medical information and we are now trying to decide how to proceed. Our agency is not satisfied with the initial response from the orphanage regarding the undisclosed medical status and is requesting more clarification. Of course, if we do not proceed with his adoption they will be trying to place him with another family and having accurate information is imperative.

This whole thing is just breaking my heart into pieces. I watch the video of him and an so enamoured and cannot imagine him not being part of our family, but the potential degenerative nature of his condition is more than what we had agreed we could knowingly handle. I vascilate between feeling like a horrible person for not continuing with his adoption, and a horrible parent for not considering the potential impact on Alex and his world.

Then, two days after we receive the video, we get an email from Alex' school that their building was sold to a consortium of banks and they need to find a new location. Not since our homeschooling days has Alex so flourished with his education. The school director is confident that there are many positives regarding the move and that the mission of the charter school will remain unchanged. They will be allowed to remain for the entire school year, but will need to have a new home in the fall.

I really hope it's not true that bad news comes in threes. I'm rapidly running out of tears.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving MySpace Glitter Graphics


We're heading to Chicago for the holiday. We are so excited and so thankful for the wonderful year we've had, the time we've shared with family and friends and the son we have waiting for us in China.

Small World

Yesterday I joined a yahoo group for families who have or are going to adopt children from the same children's welfare institute in Luoyang City, Henan Province. I immediately got an email from a woman who lives an hour away who has a six and a half year old son and a thirteen yo daughter from GuoXin's CWI! The son was adopted one year ago and the daughter just came here in September. I was amazed to learn that this family has adopted 3 children from China in 22 months!

Plus, we saw photos on the group site posted by families who traveled there in the past year, photos that included him! Apparently through this group we can make contact with families who are traveling there and they can look specifically for him and give us some first hand updates and photos.

The best part in looking at the pictures posted was seeing the orphanage and the children. It looks like a clean, cheerful place and the children seem to be happy and well engaged in school and play activities. It's comforting to know that he's in a good place.

Was there Life before You Tube?

I just love You Tube! It's amazing the things you can track down there, and then you find yourself skipping along memory lane! I'm not sure why I was visiting Sesame Street, but I found several clips that I loved as a kid and will be posting here on the blog.

Seemed like the Ladybug Picnic would be a fitting first video to post.

The Shallots Are Lurking . . .

and Matt Damon??? No offense to all those Mr. Damon fans, but really??? Sexiest man alive???

We enjoyed a lovely dinner of chicken satay with grilled red onions, couscous with feta, cranberries and sundried tomatoes, and fresh green beans topped with toasted almonds, balsamic reduction and shallots. As Alex was commenting on the engineering marvel that is the green bean, he remarked "ahh, the shallots are lurking".

Parlez-Vous Mandarin?

Seeing as how we only have 4 to 8 months to get ready for meeting Sir Guo Xin, figured no time like the present to shell out the big bucks for the China travel guides and the language tutorials which promise that you'll speak like a (developmentally delayed) native. Actually I don't think Living Language promised that (especially the dd part), but they do sound rather optimistic on their packaging.

Last night I did some online browsing on Guo Xin's current city of residence, Luoyang. We can travel by train via Xi'an (Terracotta Warriors) from Beijing (we so love trains) so perhaps we can go that route when traveling to bring him home. I'd love a chance to see some of China's countryside; make it a bit more of a vacation instead of just this dream come true, life changing meeting our child journey.

Lizard Update

The lizard was deemed healthy enough to be released into the wild yesterday and hopefully has reunited with his friends and family. He will be missed (by one large, grey kitty).

Corn Maze

So we pulled up into the parking lot for our day of fun at the corn maze. Remember, we've been under a severe drought now for months. Resevoirs are disappearing, brown lawns and dirty cars are a badge of honor. We looked out across the field of waist-high corn and thought, oh yeah, this is going to be a challenge.

It was planned a few weeks ago, a picnic lunch and an afternoon enjoying the maze and other diversions at the Dunn CornMaze. I guess a few weeks ago there was still some hope that we'd get that much needed rain and a miracle growth spurt would occur. Nope. Didn't happen.

Once we finished our picnic, we bought our tickets and got our instructions for the maze. There were seven mailboxes in the maze, each with an ink stamp. Each group was given a card with their start time. You had to go around the maze, find each mailbox and stamp your card. Once finished, you take your card to the Country Store to have them record your finish time and total time in the maze.

Amazingly, it was really tough!! Especially frustrating was when there was a row of corn seperating you from a mailbox, but couldn't easily get to it. You could almost reach it . . .but almost isn't good enough.

The weather was perfect and the kids and parents also enjoyed the various smaller, haybale mazes that we wrongly assumed at first were for toddlers and were actually very difficult, rule specific mazes. One you could only make right turns in (I was feeling a little dizzy after that one) and the other had you continue straight until you hit a wall; only then could you turn right or left. There was also trike racing, pumpkin chuckers and hayrack rides.

Definately something to remember for next fall. Perhaps the corn will be taller, but even if it's not we'll still plan a visit.

Our New Pet

A lizard has been found. An injured lizard that needs to be nursed back to health. I'm not sure that we're truly capable of such care as both his back legs appear to be broken. He also has two suspicious round grayish marks (burns?) on his back.

Some quick lizard research was done and we believe he is an anole, which apparently are carnivorous. I was really hoping he would turn out to be a vegetarian. I don't mind finding and storing food for a plantasaurus. But crickets and mealworms, LIVE ones at that. Ugh. We'll see how long he lasts.

It's Out Of Our Hands

Our first batch of paperwork needed for Guo Xin is on its way to St. Louis! In addition to what is already in China, we needed to send paperwork specific for this child indicating that we've researched his condition and have a plan in place for his care. Once China has had a chance to review it they will get our appointment for the American Consulate visit in Guangzhou and let us know when we have been approved to travel.

So now we wait.